Vic’s Statehouse Notes #273 – February 6, 2017

The following is an excerpt from Vic's Statehouse Notes, written by Vic Smith of the Indiana Coalition for Public Education.

You can reach Vic to subscribe to the notes by emailing him at: vic790@aol.com

Dear Friends,

In its meeting last Tuesday (Jan. 31), the House Education Committee passed the biggest K-12 voucher expansion since the 2013 session.

This voucher expansion is in a high profile bill to expand pre-kindergarten, House Bill 1004.

Senate Bill 276 also expands pre-kindergarten but without expanding vouchers. SB 276 deserves your active support while HB 1004 deserves your active opposition.

I urge all public school advocates to contact members of the Senate Education Committee before they vote on Wednesday February 8th (1:30pm) to support Senate Bill 276 as it stands with no link to K-12 vouchers.

The members of the Senate Education Committee are:

Republican Senators Kruse, Raatz, Bassler, Crane, Freeman, Kenley, Leising and Zay

Democratic Senators Melton, Mrvan and Stoops

Lifetime Vouchers for Pre-K ($6 M to $10.5 M): Approaching Half the Annual Funding for Pre-K Itself

House Bill 1004 gives a lifetime K-12 voucher to any student that gets a pre-kindergarten grant. The bill sets the income cap for this voucher expansion at a high level: $89,900 for a family of four. This is 200% of the reduced lunch income level and higher than most pathways to vouchers which are capped at 150% of the reduce lunch level.

The bill also doubles the number of families that can apply for a pre-K grant and thereby qualify for a lifetime voucher by raising the pre-K income cap from $31,000 to $67,000 (for a family of four).

This expensive voucher guarantee would eventually lead to voucher eligibility for all students.

Universal vouchers have long been the Holy Grail for voucher advocates like Representative Behning. Obviously if they can hitch vouchers to pre-K, they can ride the pre-K escalator up as it eventually expands to reach the goal of universal vouchers.

The expense of the voucher provision hurts the funding available for pre-K students. The non-partisan Legislative Services Agency estimated that giving vouchers to all pre-K students could cost the state between $6 and $10.5 million annually. The pre-K plan itself will cost the state $20 million annually. Clearly the money to be spent on vouchers would be better spent on raising the funding to help more pre-K students.

Senate Bill 276 expands the pre-K program without the expensive baggage of expanding the K-12 voucher program. Let Senators know that you support their approach and oppose using the pre-K bill as a cover to further expand K-12 vouchers.